Podcast 431: Why are These Cards Banned in Modern? (Part 2) 

Lol at oko. It really is the card that when you look at it you really can convince yourself it's not that bad. But the first time you play against it. You're like wait it can do that... Then when you used 5 cards to kill it only for your opponent to play another one, and it happens 10 times in a 4 round tournament. You're miserable...

Crim: Glimpse of Nature too broken Also Crim: Oko is fine!

Crim said oko was fine. Richard said lurrus was fine. I feel so bad for Seth and God this was such a fun idea for a video but i just ended up stressed out

Skullclamp can also get fetched out by Urza's Saga, which would put it over the top imo

"What if we made [...] players find a new deck besides playing this, like, old archetype that hasn't had support for like, literally a decade or something?" -Richard, modern jund aficionado

I feel like glimpse of nature could put out imperial regisaur on turn one or something like that and then get the turn 2 kill maybe

I am not sure you guys spoke about Faithless Looting last podcast. I was sure you needed to start with that. You finished with Eldrazi

Glimpse of nature sounds crazy in affinity. Legitimately you can highroll a +4 in cards as you fill the board

Containment Priest shuts down Hypergenesis, and you can put it into play off the first Hypergenesis round to shut off all their remaining creatures. It'd have to be sideboard tech in white decks but it does function.

I think a companion that reduced deck size for a restriction would be way too broken. In almost any format there are 2-4 card win combos and reducing the size of your deck just makes it that much more consistent to get those combos.

Watching the 8 whack dino deck a couple hours ago I had the thought of turning the deck into some version of mono green storm with all of the free artifact creatures and other stuff to make it easier to cast 20/20 dino on turn 2. With Glimpse of Tomorrow you could chew through your whole deck to find the dino and some spell to give it haste.

There are enough 0 mana creatures to make Glimpse of Nature a serious combo piece for something.

If hypergenisis was unbanned, you can chain together atraxas to pretty much draw a good chunk of your deck, and easily put advantage your opponent by shear card quality that you can play

Glimpse would go crazy with 0 drop creatures like ornithopter and walking ballista to draw your deck. The deck would be closer to something like sram0s rather than elf ball.

Safest unban IMO is Splinter Twin. That deck is not fast enough to be viable in today's modern. That combo deck would be fringe competitive today especially with cards like Force of Negation. Power Creep is real.

Richard is aware Lurrus was legal with MH2 right? Right? Like the DRC Ragavan Lurrus deck existed for a long time. Saga jund with lurrus as a companion. Lurrus in hammer. Etc

If Splinter Twin was legal it will pack Ragavan, Counterspell, Veil of summer, and whole load of powerful one mana counters and interactions spells. I don't think that it's going to be oppressive because its a turn 4 combo in a turn 3 format. But I'm pretty sure it would be somewhere from tier 2 to very decent because stopping twin, if they have enough mana, sounds very hard. Issue is that half the metagame wins way faster, but maybe a control build with a crapton of counters and removal with twin as a finisher can be very good. The best of part Twin, and why it was so good, is how you flashed in the Pestermite at the end of the turn, and the untapped and won with twin, so it goes hand in hand with playing powerful instant interaction and playing the control game.

21:12 The answer is Containment Priest

Is it time to print tarmagoyf into pauper, is this were we are?

Very cool I love banlist videos 🎉😊

Watching control players cry at my lands in scapeshift deck, scooping to a land draw used to be very satisfying

I would love to have this exact type of episode for the commander ban list. Please consider it!

I love playing modern and I play it a lot online and in person I feel like saying "modern is bad anyway lets just unban the most broken cards because I dont care about it" is an awful take that was made like 6 times for these cards. I just wanted some in depth discussion beyond "modern sux. 2012 where you died to a 2 mana card because removal was just path" is a bad take

You guys are crazy with some of these thoughts.

Here’s what you do with glimpse. Turn all your Ornithopter and Memnites into cantrips, play Thought monitor, neo form into Cratorhoof and win. Also, I saw someone make a good point on the topic of unbanning Jitte. It wouldn’t change the meta by a lot, but it would make any fair creature deck even more unplayable, and if it does either that, and/or make Hammer time even better, there’s no reason to unban it.

"Splinter Twin" is fine ah but you forgot to mention how it impacts Amulet Titan

My friends and I be ignoring the ban lists. We just play between ourselves for fun.

Richard's wall outlet makes me think there's something on my screen

Alternate title: Richard plays Devils Advocate for 1 hour.

I feel like Seth had a fun idea to talk about cards that could be unbanned and wanted to make interesting conversation about edge case cards and Richard showed up with the knowledge of modern from 10 years ago and it's not compatible at all. If for even a second you think Lurrus can be unbanned, im sorry Seth lol

I love how you guys talk about Sensei's and Urza's Saga never comes up. As a Titanshift player I would love GSZ unban. It would boost up the fairer versions of PrimeTime and create new decks. FOTD is a card I love and miss. I get why it should be banned. Hypergenesis is the only cascade spell that gets worse as you mulligan and Grief would hurt that deck a lot. If you got no threats in hand it does nothing.

There are some decks playing ornithopter and memnites. Wouldn´t Glimpse of nature work with those? On the matter of Okos powerlevel. Would you rather tap 3 lands and get a Karn liberated or Oko thief of crowns. I´d say it´s not that much of a clear cut answer.

Okay seriously we DO NOT need Jitte in any format where Ragavan is legal. The monkey would turn into a Build-Your-Own-Oko with even more upside

My biggest takeaway from the cast and comments is that Glimpse would be super broken in some hypothetical 0 drop creature deck. Which is like, fine? Like those decks basically all suck anyways.

I thought part of the banning rationale for Glimpse was that it made turns take too long? Or was that just for 2nd sunrise?

There's actually a lot of recent cards that have been printed that would directly combat Hypergenesis Containment Priest is two mana and has the static effect of a nontoken creature would enter the battlefield and it wasn't cast, exile it instead. Mistcaller is one blue mana and reads Sacrifice Mistcaller: Until end of turn, if a nontoken creature would enter the battlefield and it wasn't cast, exile it instead. Hallowed Moonlight is an instant for 2 with the above effects, and it also draws a card Notably, all of these cards ALSO stop Living End, AND Crashing Footfalls. The issue isn't stopping the effect - instead, it's the flexibility of the sideboard slots. Living End is the healthiest out of all three, not because it is the easiest to counter (it is) but also because the average Modern player's sideboard will ALREADY contain answers for it, i.e. graveyard hate. Meanwhile if you want to counter the effect of Hypergenesis or Crashing Footfalls, you either devote 3-4 slots for cards that are really only good against Indominatable Creativity and Cascade Food for thought.

Yeah, Skullclamp is similar to Glimpse, but doesn't have to do it all in one turn... it's a grindy card and that's where it's strongest... you never run out of interaction in Affinity with this. *I think No-ban Modern is a shitty way to read data on single cards. I would never use Noban modern to rate single cards... it's more to rate the strongest cards of ALL banned cards.* *Fucking useless data, really.* My unban list: Preordain - when it's safe, unban Ponder. Splinter Twin Punishing Fire My wanna watch Modern Burn Unban: Divining Top Skullclamp Uro Yorion

Crim's response when Seth says to unban Glimpse. :D

What about Glimpse of Nature in Seth’s goblin Dino-whack deck. Maybe + Birgi to give more late game push?

Possibly acceptable restriction for a 30 card companion: you can only have one card of each name in your deck.

Question for the community and goldfish crew, would the companions be OK if they didn't have the companion mechanic? Like could we have a Lurrus same mana cost, stats, and ability but not be a companion? Or would they still be too strong?

Jitte is too good

Take a shot every time primeval titan is mentioned

you guys spoke about Faithless Looting last podcast? I was sure you needed to start with that. You finished with Eldrazi at least on the videos you guys posted on youtube

skullclamp and top are fetchable with usa's saga and none of you came up with that, which amazes me because it sounds super relevant

1:06:20 insane xD A companion with an UPSIDE as its restriction xDDD

Glimpse of nature in my affinity deck 🥵

Sorry Crim, Rule 0 doesn't apply during tournaments. Curry was fair game.

what is the wallpaper art there? it looks so beautiful

@hypergenesis the answer is Containment Priest.

If you didn't know anything about modern and listened to this episode you would think Amulet is the most broken deck in the current format and on the verge of insanity. Its been barely keeping its head about water, especially on a competitive stage. Outside of amulet listening to the crew talk about the modern format is a good example of what the out of touch magic community perceives modern as, including the episode where you talked about why old staples aren't good anymore.

They need to make a new land of the dead and call it land of the Fred ... Each time you play a land after your 7th put a Maurice token on land of the Fred. You can remove one counter per turn, to create a 2/2 zombie creature named Maurice..

If everything in modern was unbanned hard reset which deck would be the most busted?

21:20 Did you forget about Containment Priest?

I would love jitte in modern

Me watching LA Kings vs Oilers from the other side: "Heck yeah!"

They should unban Grove so they can finish the cycle. Plus the cards always had gorgeous art across all 3 artworks it's had and if it gets unbanned then it could get reprinted and we'd get even more.

wouldnt glimpse be good in yawgmoth?

I think they should ban the Companion mechanic out of all formats besides the Wild West format of Historic. Just ban the mechanic and allow Lurrus, Yorion, Lutri, and Zirda to be played in the formats they currently can’t. I think Companion should be in Historic because in some ways, the mechanic was the first digital mechanic in both the way it works and how it got errata. They could even experiment more with changes to the mechanic. Like maybe having a companion means having a reduced maximum hand size or if you mulligan it increases the cost to move it to your hand.

I haven't played Modern since MH2. The way you guys talk about it makes it seem like Fury and Primeval Titan need to get banned. Am I wrong in this?

bussin

But you didn't talk about faithless Looting last time :(

WHAT IS THE PROCESS TO LET WOTC KNOW WE WOULD LIKE CARDS LIKE SKULL CLAMP AND SPLINTER TWIN UNBANNED? I KNOW TWIN FOR SURE WOULD NOT BE GOOD IN THE MODERN FORMAT NOW.

Glimpse wouldnt bring up elves, it wozld just super charge 8cast.

Give me Jitte! My favorite card!

Crim....imagine being a Blazer fan :/

Containment priest and hallowed moonlight would wreck hypergenesis

Bruh really forgot Splinter Twin in an unbanning discussion... 💀

only way for mycosyntg lattice to be unbanned is if they erraratd karn to make it so activated abilities of artifacts your opponent ceontrop cant be activated UNLES THEY ARE MANA ABILITIES

I absolutely despise the “don’t unban it because they might print a card to make it better” argument. The upside of unbanning a card is that a bunch of people get to play said card that they love.

If glimpse got unbanned, I'd probably play it in 4 color elementals and lose every match, lol

Force of despair, the counter to hypergenesis 😅

I think you are greatly overselling how much of an impact Second Sunrise would have on the format. Give it a chance.

In defence for Krark-Clan Ironworks: though the first version with Second Sunrise was super-inconsistent, the last version with Scrap Trawler and Pia's Revolution (I love that card) of the combo did consistently win. If certain cards hit the battlefield while the Eggs player untaps the Eggs player goes infinite, given they execute the combo correctly. Actually killing the opponent indeed takes a while, that's true, but it was never a guess whether the Eggs player would win when the combo took off. The crazy rules interaction that I also was unaware of caused the ban, but I guess a better solution is printing a version that has something like the errata on Lion's Eye Diamond: "activate this ability only any time you could cast an instant". It feels to me like the Splinter Twin players: players are to scared for what happened back then, so keep it banned. With all the (artifact) hate in the format is it really that good anymore? Covid was done, and bans caused us to make more creative decks. I had later a Lantern Control shell ready to go (even without the Opal later to be replaced by some mana dorks). But the hyper-aggressiveness and reactiveness introduced in MH2 made me quit playing Modern and Magic. Thanks, monkey.

Richard has no idea about the format anymore.

Lurrus needs to stay banned so many decks can still take advantage of it grixis death shadows would be to good again so would hammer time I ran it in both decks and I know first hand it makes them very hard to deal with like ur wasting so much removal just for me to eventually start replaying everything

Really can't wait until you have to explain why Veil of Summer is banned. IIRC, having 4 maindeck was ruining the entire metagame and invalidating entire strategies. Sounds like what countermagic is supposed to be doing, right? "Card draw and counterspells are part of the game, you should just learn to play around them" is the clarion call for all the players who complained about Veil.

Containment priest can stop the hypergenesis

It sounds like Fury is a huge problem.

Mistcaller is an answer for hypergenesis

I don’t think it’s a good idea to unban glimpse with evoke elementals in the game. Temur control would become a tyrant

I think jitte is unironically the worst offender on the list. Maybe not the strongest but it is ridiculously unhealthy card that completely shuts down chances for fair decks and doesnt do anything vs unfair decks. And with ragavan around it makes snowballing so much easier. Just no

I was hoping the subject would be the Pinkertons situation... Not because it's drama, but because it's a sad serious issue the community should put more attention into :/

I'm still annoyed that Uro Mystic Sanctuary and Field were banned at the same time. Try banning one card or the other and then do a check in if the deck is problematic.

Containment priest hits on hypergenesis

Elf Ball wouldn't get broken from Glimpse... Crim

Mental misstep should be unbanned i mean who wouldnt want a format where whoever draws the most missteps wins 😂😂😂

Modern has a similar problem than yugi, instead of banning the cards that break the format, they ban the cards that enable it. You could release a ton of cards from the ban list just by banning seemingly inocuous cards like Manamorphose, Valakut, Amulet, and so.

Im in the "unban lurrus you cowards" group. why you gotta take away the one bannable card from mill? and we won easier with it prebanned cause of the low cmc decks did

Episode was hard to watch just because of how out if touch Crim and Richard are with the format. It doesn’t seem like either of them have played the format in a while or even enjoy it.

Chrome, aren't you still in middle school?

Free spells ruined modern completely.. thanks mh2 / all supplemental sets.

I think a very important question to ask when discussing unbanning cards is very simply, "Why?" It's not enough that a unbanned card simply not be meta warping, if we're bringing it back into the format it should be something that actively diversifies the meta, allows non Tier strategies to be competitive. Otherwise, why risk bringing once broken cards back? Oko and Uro and Companions are never going to be cards that are good for the format, and honestly? Modern needs more bans, not less. MH2 will be meta defining until the elementals/Ragavan/Urza's Saga are banned or something even more stupid is printed.

Glimpse of Nature would already be broken in something like Elementals with Risen Reef.

The Tibalt's Trickery deck was the absolute epitome of "solitaire." I looked down on everyone who played it as a terrible player and person. In fact, I used to intentionally rope them on Arena for as long as I could, not only because I was salty of their existence, but because the longer I roped, the less they got to force their bullshit on anyone else.

Isnt Finale of Devastation Similar enough to green Sun's zenith? why is finale not banned and Grenn sun is. the only difference is 1 more green mana to do the same and sometimes even better sometimes when you get finales +10 effect. seems sus to me

Something y’all never seem to get is would unbanning something make for a better format it doesn’t matter if it’s safe would it lead to better gameplay. These discussions come from a place of boredom and wanting to shake up the meta in reality you would just worse format.

Wasn't the justification for Lurrus being banned to allow other decks to compete in the metagame; at which the banning failed to actually achieve. Also Twin imo is better just left banned it only does one of two things: either it does nothing or it makes UR decks better which if the "it makes amulet titan better" argument is a valid justification for not unbanning a card shouldn't the same be true for UR potentially getting a boon?

Is tha OKO in the thumbnail

How is Field of the Dead even remotely scary in an a) fast format which is b) filled with strong X/3+ creatures (Shredder, Fury, Goyf, the Zoo creatures, Dryad, Yawgmoth, Constructs, creatures with a +10/+10 hammer, Rhinos, the stuff Living End reanimates, ....)?